How will advances in computing transform human society?

MIT students contemplated this impending query as a part of the Envisioning the Way forward for Computing Prize — an essay contest wherein they were challenged to assume ways in which computing technologies could improve our lives, in addition to the pitfalls and dangers related to them.

Offered for the primary time this 12 months, the Institute-wide competition invited MIT undergraduate and graduate students to share their ideas, aspirations, and vision for what they think a future propelled by advancements in computing holds. Nearly 60 students put pen to paper, including those majoring in mathematics, philosophy, electrical engineering and computer science, brain and cognitive sciences, chemical engineering, urban studies and planning, and management, and entered their submissions.

Students dreamed up highly inventive scenarios for the way the technologies of today and tomorrow could impact society, for higher or worse. Some recurring themes emerged, reminiscent of tackling issues in climate change and health care. Others proposed ideas for particular technologies that ranged from digital twins as a tool for navigating the deluge of knowledge online to a cutting-edge platform powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and biosensors to create personalized storytelling movies that help individuals understand themselves and others.

Conceived of by the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC), a cross-cutting initiative of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing in collaboration with the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), the intent of the competition was “to create an area for college kids to think in a creative, informed, and rigorous way in regards to the societal advantages and costs of the technologies they’re or might be developing,” says Caspar Hare, professor of philosophy, co-associate dean of SERC, and the lead organizer of the Envisioning the Way forward for Computing Prize. “We also desired to convey that MIT values such pondering.”

Prize winners

The competition implemented a two-stage evaluation process wherein all essays were reviewed anonymously by a panel of MIT faculty members from the school and SHASS for the initial round. Three qualifiers were then invited to present their entries at an awards ceremony on May 8, followed by a Q&A with a judging panel and live in-person audience for the ultimate round.

The winning entry was awarded to Robert Cunningham ’23, a recent graduate in math and physics, for his paper on the implications of a personalised language model that’s fine-tuned to predict a person’s writing based on their past texts and emails. Told from the angle of three fictional characters: Laura, founding father of the tech startup ScribeAI, and Margaret and Vincent, a pair in college who’re frequent users of the platform, readers gained insights into the societal shifts that happen and the unexpected repercussions of the technology.

Cunningham, who took home the grand prize of $10,000, says he got here up with the concept for his essay in late January while fascinated about the upcoming release of GPT-4 and the way it could be applied. Created by the developers of ChatGPT — an AI chatbot that has managed to capture popular imagination for its capability to mimic human-like text, images, audio, and code — GPT-4, which was unveiled in March, is the latest version of OpenAI’s language model systems.

“GPT-4 is wild in point of fact, but some rumors before it launched were even wilder, and I had just a few long plane rides to take into consideration them! I enjoyed this chance to solidify a vague notion into an editorial, and since a few of my favorite works of science fiction are short stories, I figured I’d take the possibility to put in writing one,” Cunningham says.

The opposite two finalists, awarded $5,000 each, included Gabrielle Kaili-May Liu, a senior majoring in mathematics with computer science, and brain and cognitive sciences, for her entry on using the reinforcement learning with human feedback technique as a tool for transforming human interactions with AI; and Abigail Thwaites and Eliot Matthew Watkins, graduate students within the Department of Philosophy and Linguistics, for his or her joint submission on automatic fact checkers, an AI-driven software that they argue could potentially help mitigate the spread of misinformation and be a profound social good.

“We were so excited to see the amazing response to this contest. It made clear how much students at MIT, contrary to stereotype, really care in regards to the wider implications of technology, says Daniel Jackson, professor of computer science and certainly one of the final-round judges. “So lots of the essays were incredibly thoughtful and inventive. Robert’s story was a chilling, but entirely plausible tackle our AI future; Abigail and Eliot’s evaluation brought recent clarity to what harms misinformation actually causes; and Gabrielle’s piece gave a lucid overview of a distinguished recent technology. I hope we’ll have the opportunity to run this contest yearly, and that it would encourage all our students to broaden their perspectives even further.”

Fellow judge Graham Jones, professor of anthropology, adds: “The winning entries reflected the incredible breadth of our students’ engagement with socially responsible computing. They challenge us to think in a different way about learn how to design computational technologies, conceptualize social impacts, and picture future scenarios. Working with a cross-disciplinary panel of judges catalyzed numerous recent conversations. As a sci-fi fan, I used to be thrilled that the highest prize went to a such a surprising piece of speculative fiction!”

Other judges on the panel for the ultimate round included:

• Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing;
• Aleksander Madry, Cadence Design Systems Professor of Computer Science;
• Asu Ozdaglar, deputy dean of academics for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science;
• Georgia Perakis, co-associate dean of SERC and the William F. Kilos Professor of Management; and
• Agustin Rayo, dean of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.

Honorable mentions

Along with the grand prize winner and runners up, 12 students were recognized with honorable mentions for his or her entries, with each receiving $500.

The honorees and the title of their essays include:

• Alexa Reese Canaan, Technology and Policy Program, “A Latest Way Forward: The Web & Data Economy”;
• Fernanda De La Torre Romo, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, “The Empathic Revolution Using AI to Foster Greater Understanding and Connection”;
• Samuel Florin, Department of Mathematics, “Modeling International Solutions for the Climate Crisis”;
• Claire Gorman, Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), “Grounding AI — Envisioning Inclusive Computing for Soil Carbon Applications”;
• Kevin Hansom, MIT Sloan School of Management, “Quantum Powered Personalized Pharmacogenetic Development and Distribution Model”;
• Sharon Jiang, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), “Machine Learning Driven Transformation of Electronic Health Records”;
• Cassandra Lee, Media Lab, “Considering an Anti-convenience Funding Body”;
• Martin Nisser, EECS, “Towards Personalized On-Demand Manufacturing”;
• Andi Qu, EECS, “Revolutionizing Online Learning with Digital Twins”;
• David Bradford Ramsay, Media Lab, “The Perils and Guarantees of Closed Loop Engagement”;
• Shuvom Sadhuka, EECS, “Overcoming the False Trade-off in Genomics: Privacy and Collaboration”; and
• Leonard Schrage, DUSP, “Embodied-Carbon-Computing.”

The Envisioning the Way forward for Computing Prize was supported by MAC3 Impact Philanthropies.